JEROAL or HIERONYMUS, was born about the year 329 at Strido, a town on the confines of Pannonia and Dalma tia. His father, who was a person of rank and property, took great care of his education ; and sent him at a proper age to study at Rome, under the best masters of those times. Under the celebrated Donatus, he made great pro gress in the belles lettres, and all the learned languages ; and was particularly careful to accomplish himself in the art of oratory, that he might the better recommend the Christian tenets. Having finished his education at Rome, he travel led into various countries in pursuit of knowledge, exam ining all the public libraries, and conversing with all the men of learning in his way. Upon his return to Rome, he resolved to devote his future life to study, and to withdraw himself entirely to some remote region, at a distance from large tuwns and civilized life. Taking with him only his books, and money sufficient to defray the expense of his journey, he proceeded through Asia Minor to Jerusalem ; thence to Antioch, where he had a dangerous illness; and finally settled in a frightful desert of Syria, where he entered upon a strict monastic course of life, in the 31st year of his age. He applied himself especially with the utmost assidui ty to the study of the sacred scriptures, and of the oriental languages ; but, after four years of laborious application, his health became so much impaired, that he found it neces sary to return to Antioch. By Paulinus, bishop of that city, he was ordained a priest in the year 378 ; but with the express stipulation on his part, that he should not be confined to any particular cure. In 381, he went to Con stantinople, where he acknowledges himself to have re ceived much valuable instruction relating to the Scrip tures from Gregory Nazianzen ; and, in the following year, he accompanied Paulinus of Antioch to Rome, where he became secretary to Pope Damasus. After the death of that pontiff in 385, and in consequence of the vexations which he experienced from the followers of Origen, he again removed from the city of Rome, and took up his abode at Bethlehem in Judea. Thither he was followed by many persons of both sexes from various parts, who had resolved to embrace the monastic life, and who were at tracted by his fame for learning and piety to put them selves under his superintendence. Here he enjoyed all that repose in which he so much delighted, and employed the remainder of his life in composing a variety of learned works, and in diligently attending to the religious instruc tion of those who had collected around him as their pastor.
He was much engaged particularly in writing against the prevailing heresies of his time, especially against the errors of Origen, and those who supported the tenets of that rival father. He lived to the age of 90 years, re taining his vigour of mind to the last ; and died on the 30th of September, A. D. 420. He has been pronounced by Erasmus, " the greatest scholar, tire greatest orator, and the greatest divine, that Christianity had then produced ;" but Le Clerc professesto shew, that his eloquence is often the most hyperbolical decla mation, his acquaintance with the learned languages far from accurate, and his reasonings generally obscure and inconsistent. His style as a writer, is nevertheless ac know ledged to be in no small degree both elegant and ani mated ; and his judgment and learning to have been upon the whole superior to those of any of the fathers who pre ceded him. his talents were better than his temper; and i he made greater attainments in the knowledge than in the spirit of Christianity. He was a man of the most choleric disposition, and ready to burst into the most outrageous abuse upon the slightest provocation ; insatiably greedy of fame, and bitterly censorious of his most respectable rivals and opponents. The first edition of his works was publish ed by Erasmus at Basle in 1526, with an account of his life prefixed ; but the latest and fullest was published at Verona by Vallersius, in 11 vols. folio. They consist chiefly of his Latin version of the scripture, distinguished by the name of the Vulgate, commentaries on different books of scripture, polemical treatises, letters, and bio graphical accounts of preceding ecclesiastical authors. Of these, the commentaries and letters are accounted the most useful, and the chief advantage of his writings consists in the information which they afford respecting the opinions of the learned Jews in biblical literature, and the fragments which they contain of the ancient Greek translations of the Bible. See Mosheim's Ch. Hist. vol. i. ; Lardner's Works, vol.ii.; tlilner's Ch. Hist. vol. iii. ; Cave's Hist. Liter. vol. ii. ; Le Clerc's Questiones Hicronymianct ; and Jor tin's Remarks on Led. Hist. (ry.)